Situated Action - PDC 2022
Firstly, we present a short film of our recent project, Dovetails.
The film follows the creation of four co-designed objects which were gifted between participants from two community groups, a group of older men living with conditions affecting their mental health, including dementia, and a group of children based in a typically disadvantaged neighborhood in north east England. Over 10 weeks, these participants created unique wood- working projects, each group working to improve the lives of the other, while gaining new creative skills, and establishing a ‘virtuous cycle’ of reflection and praxis.
Watch the film below, or click here to learn more about Dovetails.
In the spirit of the project shown, we invite participants to create a design proposal for a fellow delegate in return for their own bespoke design, in a co-design ‘secret santa’. We aim to reveal ways in which we can hope to be seen and come to understand artful ways of seeing, through a new virtuous cycle.
What is involved?
This Situated Action takes place in 4 steps, designed to encourage connectedness, co-authorship, translation, empathy, and playfulness:
Step 1. About you:
Complete a short personal note about yourself, we ask that you don't include data (like your name or your job), and instead think about things that bring you joy, and things that you might need in your day.
You could respond to:
Things that bring you joy
Things that you might need in your day
How you like to work
What's good to have to hand
What do you like to be nearby
How you feel where you normally sit
Where you like to be at rest
Step 2. You will be sent a personal note via email written by another PDC2022 delegate, you are invited to read the bio and think about this person.
Step 3. For someone else:
You will describe 'A Place to Sit' for that person, via another Google Form, responding to their personal note. This description of a place can be real or imaginary, practical or whimsical. This description will serve as the basis for the team to make a woodblock print, so we invite the use of as much descriptive, poetic language as you like.
Our team will draw an illustration from your description, which will be printed and shared. The team are going to be taking your descriptions and translating them into a woodblock, so the ideas you write will be interpreted by another designer. This is part of the conversation that we're trying to foster, asking where authorship and the translation of imagery resides.
Step 4. You will be sent a digital copy of the design made for you, along with the written description. This design will be the translation of the description made in response to your original personal note. You will be invited to give feedback on this final gifted design.
Designs will be illustrated by our team, and these illustrations will be turned into a small series of woodblock prints for the PDC exhibition in Newcastle this year. If you attend the exhibition in person, there will be the opportunity to print and take away any of the designs as a keepsake.